The present invention relates generally to radio communications systems, and more particularly to a data communications system having overlapping receiver coverage zones for substantially improving data throughput from contending data radios.
In prior radio communications systems, a large geographical area was typically covered by a single centrally located transmitter and receiver which were operable on one or more radio channels. Reception was improved somewhat by locating multiple receivers in poor coverage areas or in nonoverlapping cells or zones. A radiotelephone system of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,906,166. More recent radio systems have located both transmitters and receivers in nonoverlapping cells where each cell is assigned different radio channels from its adjacent cells. However, none of these prior radio communications systems has solved the problem of maximizing information throughput where data radios are contending for use of the same radio channel.